Why blog?

I have a confession to make.

I already have a blog.

It's a private blog, that I only opened up to family. Begun when we moved to Japan two years ago, I wrote for about 6 months until I realized that my mother and mother-in-law (the main audience for which said blog was created) never actually read what I wrote.  They are (thank goodness) busy women.  I was not interested in opening my family posts to a wider readership. I don't have the writing gift that my other friends have.  I am not particularly witty.  Facebook already offered me (probably too much) opportunity for navel-gazing.  There hasn't been much room in my life to blog.

That was until friends from the States began to get orders to Japan.  I now find myself in the accidental role of How To Live In Japan When You Have A Kid And An Always-Deployed Husband sort-of-expert.  Not that I know much.  The longer I live here, the less I know (now that I think about it, it's kind of like being married!).  So rather than write multiple Facebook messages and send multiple emails to answer questions like:

"Can I buy organic diapers?"
"What kind of stroller should I bring?"
"How do you fly with a toddler?"
"What's your daughter's preschool like?"
"Can I buy organic milk at a Japanese grocery store?"
"I hear it's too expensive to shop off-base. Is that true?"

I will do my best to answer them here.  These are all things that I have learned, a bit through personal trial and error, but mostly because of the ENORMOUS help my Japanese friends and English students have graciously given me.  So what I have, I will share.  What I don't know, I will do my best to find out.  We military mommies don't have to be stuck using the same rotation of Exchange-Commissary-Amazon.com!  It just takes a little bit of know-how, a smattering of information, and a larger than average dose of chutzpah. =)

Ganbatte!

-The Tofu Fox